


Knock on Wood

by pixie_rings



Series: Let Love Grow [7]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Dildos, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Genderqueer Character, Goblin Market, M/M, No Sex, Sex Shop, Sex Toys, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 14:42:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1986816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixie_rings/pseuds/pixie_rings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bunnymund and Jack visit a goblin market, and Jack finds out a little something interesting...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knock on Wood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kayasurin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayasurin/gifts).



> Taking a break from the cliche fics to bring you this little piece of wtfuckery.
> 
> I had loads of fun writing this, and creating Memim was especially fun.
> 
> (Also, tips: this is how you write a genderqueer character without resorting to transphobic slurs.)

The place was a mad cacophony of sight, sound and smell. Haphazard stalls rubbed shoulders with rickety lean-tos and better made wooden huts. Everywhere there were voices, shouting, haggling and laughing. There were a thousand scents on the air, from roses to unwashed body, and the _crowds_... well, they were _beyond_ weird. Jack truly couldn't describe them: elves as sharply beautiful as icicles mingled with mossy trolls with rough-hewn features, and between them darted pixies, gnomes and kobolds. Here there was the fiery red of a leprechaun's beard, there the foxy flick of a kitsune's tail, and then he could hear the silvery trill of an apsara's voice. And beyond these were myriads of people Jack had no name for at all.

“Don't breathe in,” Bunnymund warned as they began to weave their way through the mass, one arm circling Jack's shoulders protectively. “They'll try to tell you you bought something.”

“L-like what?” asked Jack, darting around a two-headed man who had decided the middle of the thoroughfare was the best possible place to hawk his wares.

“Smells, mostly,” Bunnymund clarified. Jack frowned.

“Since when can you _buy_ smells?” Well, ok, you could buy _perfume_ , but you couldn't buy the smell of the perfume... could you? Bunnymund snorted.

“You can buy anything here,” he said, as if it was incredibly obvious. “It's a goblin market.”

Jack almost stumbled as they strode past a stall which reeked of overcooked lizard meat. “Goblin market?” He laughed. “So is Jareth gonna appear in all his glory?”

“No, and I'm glad of that.”

Jack smirked. Ever since they'd actually seen Labyrinth together, Bunnymund had forbidden Jack from watching it alone. Apparently even a fictional man's crotch brought out the possessiveness. “So... why are we here, exactly?” he asked, shying away from a green-clad hag with mossy teeth who was leering at him.

“Got some business,” Bunnymund said easily. “Thought you'd be interested in seeing the place.”

Well, it certainly was _interesting_. The madness of it, though, seemed purposely disorientating, as if it too were some sort of faerie enchantment meant to ensnare and bewilder. Jack was glad Bunnymund was keeping him close, the idea of being separated was a rather horrifying one. This Daedalus of stalls and shops was shifting almost before his very eyes. Once in, Jack suspected, you didn't get out. He wondered how long the denizens of this place had been here. Did they even care?

He stayed completely put, almost statue-like, when Bunnymund paused to look at some seeds a dryad was selling on her pretty stall. It was mostly plants and crystals, and the smell of thick, heady incense made Jack light-headed just by standing near it. He shook his head.

“Hey there, stranger.”

He turned, one eyebrow raised. Then his face frosted over to practically the roots of his hair. Women weren't his thing, but when so much skin was on display so provocatively, anyone would have been embarrassed.

With a flick of her cowtail the huldra came closer, licking her lips. “Aren't you a _cutie_?” she purred, taking a long puff of her pipe. She looked as if she was prepared to blow the smoke into Jack's face, edging forward. Then her eyes widened. She attempted, somewhat clumsily, to keep it in, making herself cough violently.

“S-s-sorry!” she choked, eyes streaming and making her make-up run down her face in long black streaks. “I didn't... the market, covers scent...”

Bunnymund cleared his throat behind Jack. The huldra gave him a weak grin and chose to vanish back into the crowd. The Pooka snorted in disgust.

“Huldra,” he said, shaking his head.

“What freaked _her_ out?” Jack asked.

“Scent marking,” Bunnymund explained, nuzzling into the side of Jack's head as they set off again. Jack tried not to smile dopily, but a rare demonstration of overt PDA was always a good thing from E. Aster Bunnymund. “Whenever I chin you, you end up smelling like me.”

“Works for me,” Jack replied, chuckling.

They took a few more turns, never once stopping again, until they reached a sidestreet that looked slightly better groomed than the rest of the place. The building in front of them was a two-storey hovel made of huge blocks of blue-grey stone. The windows were covered with ornate lattice-work, and the sign above the door was simply incomprehensible. It had a generally slightly shifty air, like the place was coughing and urging people to move along, there was nothing to see here. Bunnymund, however, strode confidently forward and entered the shop.

Jack had never been as embarrassed as he was then. The reason he knew this was because he'd never had his hair actually freeze itself into spikes as the frost on his cheeks spread further than ever before.

There were shelves along most of the walls, and on those shelves were a collection of the most exquisitely crafted sex toys Jack had ever seen. They really couldn't have been anything else, not with those shapes, but... they looked more like works of art than mere instruments of pleasure. The craftsmanship, the smoothness of the wood and the supple look of the leather...

He tried not to stare. He really did. He wasn't that good at it.

“Well well well, you're finally back, I see!”

Jack managed to tear his eyes away from the impressive array of artistic dildos in order to look across the counter... He then gaped.

There was a Pooka standing there. A Pooka that wasn't Bunnymund. It was shorter than him, for one, and more generously endowed in the general chest area. The facial features were different too, more delicate, more... feminine. It was definitely a female Pooka with rusty brown fur and a smirk.

Bunnymund rolled his eyes and strode over, dumping the pack he'd been carrying on the counter. “Pack it in,” he said. The female Pooka laughed, low, rich and suggestive.

“Or what?” She craned her neck around Bunnymund and her eyes went wide. “Ooh, you brought _him_?”

Her whole body seemed to ripple, as if someone had dropped a pebble in the pool of her reality, and instead of a female Pooka, there was now a tall, handsome red-haired man with tanned skin and a grin that would have made half the world swoon. Jack's cheeks felt like ice again, probably because the man wasn't wearing much, and, well... Jack was still a full-blooded young man, magical resurrection be damned.

“Or maybe you'd rather have...” Another ripple, and now there was a male Pooka, much like Bunnymund, but with nothing of him, really, his fur a rich russet and his eyes coppery. To Jack, though, it had just gone from attractive to confusing. His eyes went to Bunnymund in bewilderment, and _his_ Pooka chuckled.

“Ignore zir, zie's an idiot,” Bunnymund said. The Pooka turned, pressed a paw to his chest with a look of mock-outrage and morphed yet again, this time to an androgynous elf-like being with thick red hair and freckles.

“Who are you calling an _idiot_ , Bunnymund?” zie asked, folding zir arms and huffing. Zie looking to Jack and rolled zir eyes. “I'm Memim, owner of this fine establishment,” zie said self-righteously. “And _you_ are the infamous Jack Frost.”

“Infamous...?” Jack echoed, daring to come nearer to the counter where Bunnymund was now leaning. The shopkeeper chuckled.

“Oh, yes,” zie said cheerfully. “You've got the spirit world in an uproar for managing to bag a catch like the Easter Bunny.” Zie winked. Bunnymund snorted. “Well _excuse me_ , Bunny, it's not my fault everyone wants to know because you've never put out!” Memim said waspishly. Zie turned back to Jack. “So, tell me... what's he like in the sack?”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“We can talk about it over coffee!” Memim suggested cheerfully. Bunnymund growled, a low warning. Memim rolled zir eyes. “Fine, fine, you overprotective old coney, keep your tenderoni under lock and key.” Zie gave Jack another wink before clapping zir hands and rubbing them together, suddenly all business. “So, what have you got for me?”

Bunnymund untied the laces of his pack and unfurled it. Jack's jaw dropped. He would never have expected this from _Bunnymund_ of all people. Ok, he knew from experience that his boyfriend was no prude, but this... _this_ was something else.

Bunnymund's cargo was revealed to be of the same kind of wares as the rest of the shop: magnificently carved dildos in every kind of wood and with every kind of shape and size. There were bumps, heads, rings, ridges, dents, spirals, waves, curves, branches, knobs... Some were so big they made Jack clench involuntarily, because _ow_. Some tapered, some bulged, some curved, some were straight. There was even one shaped like a stylised deer, and he didn't want to know who would want that. They were all, however, trapped in a bizarre limbo between art and obscenity. Every time Jack came close to simply admiring them, some part of him reminded himself exactly what they were for.

Memim began inspecting them, one by one, like a connoisseur, closing an eye and looking down them, running a hand down them, rubbing them with a thumb. It was so no-nonsense and practically done, however, that finding it erotic would have been a bit of a struggle. Jack took advantage of the shift in zir attention to drag Bunnymund off to the side, his face sparkling with rime.

“What are _those_?” he asked in a hiss, not even daring to glance in the direction of Memim and those compromising objects. Had he been alone, or just with Bunnymund, he would have found some of them _very_ interesting indeed. As it was, however, with Memim there, they were just embarrassing.

“What do they look like?” Bunnymund asked with a smirk. Jack gave him a pained look.

“Why didn't you tell me about them?” That was the truly pressing question. Lovers weren't supposed to have secrets, were they? Bunnymund had the grace to look a little guilty.

“Er, well.... never got round to it,” he admitted. “Never needed to bring it up. 'Snot like you found them while I was working on them, or anything.” He quailed beneath Jack's glare, ears drooping. “Sorry.”

“I hope you aren't having a lovers' spat on my account!” Memim trilled. Zie seemed to have finished zir in-depth inspection. “Exquisite work, as usual, Bunny. I'll take them.”

“Ace,” Bunnymund said, rubbing his paws and heading back over to the counter. Jack heaved a small sigh and followed, shouldering his staff and trying not to sulk. It was quite easy to come to terms with the fact your boyfriend made dildos... in fact, he was sure something _very_ intriguing could come out of it. It wasn't so easy to accept the subterfuge, the wilful withholding of information, especially after three hundred years of silence.

“So,” Memim began in the sort of tone that boded nothing well. Zir coppery eyes flicked to Jack, full of mischief. “We've been wondering...”

“'We'?” Jack said curiously.

“Oh, myself, my clientele... We've been wondering, ever since we got wind of you and Bunnymund _stepping out_ , as they used to say... when are we going to get the never-melting ice range?”

Jack's hair turned to icicles again – twice in one day. Bunnymund spluttered indignantly and tugged Jack against him as if he was some sort of innocent to be protected. Memim merely chuckled, eyeing them with an impish smirk.

“Keep that up,” Bunnymund growled, “and I won't bring you any more stock.”

That sobered Memim up immediately. Apparently the prospect of being denied Bunnymund's creations was the worst thing possible. Zie made a face.

“Can't you take a _joke_ , Bunny?” zie said plantively.

“No,” both Jack and Bunnymund said, completely deadpan.

“Seriously,” Jack said in a theatrical whisper, “as the Guardian of Fun, I can tell you it's actually really hard to get the sense of humour out of him.”

“ _Really_?” Memim perked zir pointed ears up in interest.

“Oi, I like Monty Python!” Bunnymund complained, folding his arms. Jack patted his shoulder consolingly with a long-suffering sigh.

They both turned when Memim laughed. It wasn't suggestive or mischievous like zir other laughs, it was a genuinely pleased laugh.

“I'm happy for you, Bunnymund,” zie said mysteriously. Jack looked from zir to Bunnymund, whose ears were drooping slightly in the way that meant he was humbled or embarrassed, a confused look on his pale face.

“What...?”

“Right, time to shoot through!” Bunnymund announced, rather loudly. “I'll come and get my payment next week!”

“Righty-ho!” Memim chirped, waving as Bunnymund dragged a bewildered Jack out the door after him.

They followed the maze of streets again until they were well away from Memim's shop, then Jack firmly planted his feet. Bunnymund, bless him, always stopped when he did that, despite having enough strength to drag Jack along behind him without breaking a sweat.

“Right, somebunny's got some explaining to do,” he declared, folding his arms. Bunnymund groaned.

“Can it wait until we're back home?” Bunnymund pleaded. People of the sort that could only be defined as professional gawpers were stopping to look. Jack chuckled.

“Fine,” he agreed.

.

He didn't give Bunnymund time to settle before he folded his arms and gave him a pointed look.

“Ok, rabbit, start talking,” he demanded.

Bunnymund sighed. “What do you want to know?” he asked, sitting down at the kitchen table.

Jack paused. He hadn't really thought about what to ask. “Um...” He slipped into his usual chair. “How did you meet Memim?”

“I... don't really remember,” Bunnymund admitted, shrugging. “It was only about two hundred years ago, though. I just happened to head to the goblin market and there... there was a Pooka there. I thought I was going insane.” He shook his head. “It was only Mem. We got talking. Turns out all nixes do that. They can read people's minds and see who they prefer to have sex with.”

“So... lady Pooka, then?” Jack tried not to bite his lip, tried not to seem like he felt a little intimidated, but... he wasn't very good at it. Bunnymund looked up, raising his eyebrows.

“Someone with an emotional connection,” Bunnymund corrected. “I haven't, as Mem put it, ever _put out_.”

Jack's eyes widened. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you're the only one in four billion years,” Bunnymund said. He took Jack hands across the table, enfolding them in his larger paws. “Pooka are, well... demisexual. We only have sex with people we're in love with. And we're nearly entirely monogamous.”

“Oh.” Jack swallowed, ducking his head. He hadn't been expecting that at all. “So, uh... how did you get to the carving?”

Bunnymund laughed. “Ah, that. Well... Mem found out I was an artist, and, er... zie commissioned me, actually. I dunno, I got bored in the down season, sometimes. It became a way to pass the time.”

“How come I've never caught you at it?” Jack asked, eyes narrowed shrewdly.

“Because I don't work on 'em in plain sight?” Bunnymund suggested tartly. Jack's cheeks frosted and he pouted.

“Well... you still should have told me!” He folded his arms, fulling prepared to sulk, but Bunnymund was giving him this wickedly thoughtful look that made his cheeks freeze.

“Y'know... I could make up for it,” Bunnymund said, just a hint of lewdness in his voice, enough to pique Jack's interest.

“Oh yeah?” His mouth might have been going a little dry. Not that he was going to let Bunnymund know that.

“Well... Let's just say that prototypes need _testing_.”

Jack couldn't get into Bunnymund's lap fast enough.


End file.
